Let me start by saying I’m not a “conferences” guy. I think one of the most ludicrous things we can do is to evaluate a team based primarily on who its peers are. That would be like trying to find out what kind of character a person has by only speaking to his or her friends. It doesn’t make any sense.
However, conferences are certainly not irrelevant. At least two-thirds of a team’s schedule includes opposition that hails from its league. The relative strength of a team’s direct competitors allows us to properly assess the difficulty that team has in terms of achieving whatever it is it wants to achieve.
With that in mind, TCI will be giving out weekly conference power rankings to update which peer groups are soaring and which are sinking. It’s not the most important thing in the race to see who will be selected to the College Football Playoff, but it certainly bears some monitoring within the broader conversation.
Onward…
1. SEC
This league was headed for a market correction after pollsters stupidly put ten of its teams inside the nation’s top 25. I blame the vast majority of its Week Two embarrassment at the feet of outsiders who set the bar unrealistically high.
There were plenty of unsavory moments, though. Auburn got all it could ask for from FCS foe Jacksonville State. Tennessee blew a two-score lead at home in the fourth quarter to Oklahoma. Arkansas lost at home to Toledo. South Carolina lost at home to Kentucky, sending the Gamecocks into panic mode trying to muster up six wins out of a brutal remaining schedule.
These are all bad, but top to bottom, the SEC still has more truly good teams than anybody else in the country. Alabama’s dominant win over Wisconsin on a neutral field will stand out more as the season wanes. Ole Miss has scored almost 150 points in two games. LSU, Texas A&M, and Georgia all look like very good—if fundamentally flawed—football teams. Missouri hasn’t been great, but the Tigers keep winning.
You could make the argument there has been more carnage here than in any other league, and that’s a fair assessment. However, there’s also been more quality play, and that counts for something.
2. Big 12
When seven of your ten teams are 2-0, it’s hard not to be impressed—even when the list of accomplishments isn’t overwhelmingly impressive. Oklahoma went to Tennessee and earned a hard-fought victory that folks in the program were immediately placing on the mantle. TCU went on the road and won at underrated Minnesota. West Virginia’s defense didn’t allow a single point for the season’s first 100-plus minutes.
Still, a lackluster early slate has rendered much of this success unimpressive. Baylor has given up a wad of points to overmatched opponents SMU and Lamar. Iowa State lost to an FCS team—albeit a slightly favored one—in South Dakota State. Texas, of course, was thoroughly beaten at Notre Dame in a fashion so demoralizing that its second-year head coach started facing questions about his future afterwards.
The success rate of the league early in the season is hard to ignore, but there might be more fluff than substance here. That will work itself out in the long run.
3. ACC
It surprised me that I put this league so high. There were plenty of reasons not to. Louisville is the only team in a Power 5 league to start 0-2 with one of those losses coming as a lined favorite. Virginia is also 0-2, although the Cavaliers were double-digit underdogs in both cases. North Carolina’s utter collapse against South Carolina will haunt it all season long.
Nine ACC schools remain unbeaten, though, and there is a bit more depth here than we thought prior to the year. Clemson and Florida State look really good atop the Atlantic Division, which we knew was likely the case. Less obvious was the ascent of Duke and Georgia Tech in the Coastal Division. Tech has basically done the same thing as Ole Miss, and the Blue Devils look sturdily built in the early going.
Even if teams like Virginia Tech and Pittsburgh end up taking steps backward due to injury, there are still indications both division races could be magnificent as autumn progresses. That’s more than we can definitively say about the bottom two leagues at this point.
4. Big Ten
Here’s what we know: This league has two squads with national title aspirations that are realistic in Ohio State and Michigan State. Here’s another thing we know: There isn’t much else.
Other than the Buckeyes winning at Virginia Tech and Sparty holding off Oregon, the Big Ten has been a frustrating league to watch early in the year. Maryland lost by three scores to Bowling Green at home. Penn State was dominated by Temple. Rutgers lost at home to a Washington State team that isn’t likely to qualify for a bowl game. Nebraska has a home loss. Purdue gave away a game at Marshall.
Perhaps the worst aspect of this league is that the favorite in the other division—Wisconsin—looked decidedly overmatched against Alabama and is really only considered the favorite because its remaining schedule is filled with cupcakes. That’s not a recipe for a deep conference.
5. Pac-12
The only reason the Pac-12 finds itself behind the Big Ten is the weight of expectation. This was supposed to be a league where a number of programs could potentially carry the torch, particularly in the South.
Instead, there has been a mixed bag. Oregon just simply doesn’t look as good. Stanford appears vastly overrated (as I predicted) and lost as a double-digit favorite at Northwestern. Arizona State was trounced by Texas A&M in what was billed as a litmus test game for both programs. Colorado lost a road game to lowly Hawaii. Oh, and Washington State lost to FCS Portland State.
I expect this league to be the most volatile among the Power 5 conferences because the order of teams could change dramatically from week to week. The teams that are supposed to populate the top of the food chain have proven exactly nothing so far, but I would expect that to change in short order.
UCLA’s freshman quarterback looks good, but how good is he really? Utah beat Michigan and Utah State, but can the Utes take that act on the road? USC, Arizona, and Cal are off to solid starts, but will roster deficiencies or injuries take their respective tolls? I believe this is the most interesting league to watch, and it will become more apparent as conference play begins in short order.